All Eyes on Art | PGH4ART

With the slogan, All Eyes on Art, the PGH4ART team, an artist-led group of students, organizers, and activists call on city lawmakers to enforce Pittsburgh’s Percent for Art Law, which requires 1% of publicly-funded construction and renovation projects to be set aside for the creation of public art. It hasn’t been enforced since its inception in 1977. This letter to the editor at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette lays out the issue and its context in detail.

In every election cycle we publicly debate on what is and is not working about our government. With candidates vying for our votes, we discuss the performance and methods of elected officials. The PGH4ART Team is using Pittsburgh’s mayoral election as a social space in which we can effectively bring All Eyes to a city law that has lain dormant since 1977. The Team is working with the Hill District Consensus Group, Fight Back Pittsburgh, and students from CAPA High School in support of the campaign. At the May 2013 demonstration at Katz Plaza, our street team collected signatures for the petition while our online organizers got the word out via Twitter,Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

“Art as part of the social landscape has a profound impact on communities,” said Shannon Pultz, the head of CAPA High School’s visual art department. “Study after study shows that the amount of art equals the amount of vibrancy of city life,” and sure enough mayoral candidate Bill Peduto and city council candidate, Dan Gilman, were in attendance at Katz Plaza. The All Eyes on Art event was discussed in a political rather than an art context in both the Post-Gazette and Pittsburgh City Paper. Heading into the November 2013 election, candidates for Pittsburgh Mayor and City Council answered in-depth questions about enforcement and implementation of the 1977 law. They have been published by the City Paper.